17 SDG for a better world. Time to take action.

17 SDG for a better world. Time to take action is an interdisciplinary and a service-learning project which lasted from October to June and which is about all SDG (Sustainable Development Goals). We divided 17 SDG in groups by topics: education and health; poverty; economy; environment; inequality; Institutions and sustainable cities and collaboration. It is an interdisciplinary project because some subjects participated in it, above all, two first: Geography, English language, Spanish language, Music and Plastic, Visual and Audiovisual Education. And it is a service-learning project because we wanted our project to go out of the classroom and school to improve our neighbourhood and to transform our students into a driving force for change. 

Every month there was a different final product related to the topic of the group of SDG about which we had worked that month. Some final products were made in international mixed groups* and others were made as a take action activities in national groups. The steps were: investigation about SDG of that month; visit of an expert related to the topic of the SDG** ; take action activities (the service-learning aspect)*** and dissemination by social networks of the school and City Hall, local radio, local written press and a presentation of the project to other teachers from schools in the region at a seminar organised by CEFIRE (the regional government's training, resources and innovation centre). 

Activities in International Groups:

• Exchange of handwritten letters between students.
• Reflections on some global issues and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), sharing ideas and discussing what students, the school, and the city are doing to achieve the SDGs.
• Creation of collaborative stories about inequalities.
• Recording of a spot on sustainable habits for environmental care.
• Solving an educational breakout in collaboration with their peers from other countries.

** Visit by experts to reinforce and expand on previously covered content:

• The school psychologist and nurse gave a talk relating the importance of physical and mental health, as well as healthy habits, to studying.
• Two members of a local NGO (Bunyoleres Sense Fronteres) came to the school to inform us about the importance of volunteering and food collection campaigns.
• The students visited an internationally leading engineering company (AUTIS).
• An environmental technician from the Gandia City Council gave a talk about the problem of plastic waste in the sea.
• Students and teachers from the Enric Valor Special Education School in Gandia came to our center to explain the problems they face daily when walking through the streets of our city.
• We visited the Gandia City Hall where various councilors and opposition politicians informed us about the organization and functions of city councils.

***Taking Action: Given the service-learning nature of the project, the following activities (each conducted in a different month) were carried out to improve the students’ environment, neighbourhood, or city:

• A letter was sent to the Councilor of Education with a series of ideas to improve physical and mental health.
• A food collection campaign was conducted for a local NGO.
• An awareness campaign was carried out on the importance of not throwing trash into the school and city street drains.
• The students identified unsustainable habits of all the family members living in their homes and informed them to replace these "bad" habits with more sustainable ones. They then monitored to check if the good habits were being implemented. In this way, the family members were involved and the impact of the project was greater.
• The students explained their project to the rest of the students and tachers in the school in order to encourage them to take action as well, thereby increasing the project’s impact.
• After conducting research on waste exported to countries outside the European Union and reading an article by a scientist from Utrecht University (citation) stating that in those countries, the waste arriving from the EU is not recycled and ends up accumulating in huge and polluting landfills, a letter was written and sent to a Member of the European Parliament requesting stricter measures.

• Following a collaboration with the Enric Valor Special Education School, architectural barriers in the city’s streets were identified and marked on Google Maps, indicating possible solutions. These were then presented, through an exhibition, to the councilors and technicians of the City Council’s Urban Planning and Basic Services departments to take the corresponding measures.